“Nothing could be less inviting than the first
appearance. A broken field of black basaltic lava is everywhere covered
by a stunted brushwood, which shows little sign of life.” Arriving
at Baltra, the sole airport of the Galapagos, on a misty overcast afternoon
I could not help thinking that Charles Darwin’s initial assessment
of the islands, which he made famous in 1835 whilst serving as a naturalist
on the British Ship HMS Beagle, was spot on. Yet on closer inspection
neither of us could have been more wrong: the seemingly Spartan landscape
was teeming with wildlife. Quite simply the Galapagos are extraordinary
and more than worthy of their epithet “Enchanted Isles”.

The collections made by Darwin during his short stay in the Galapagos
Islands and the notes and impressions he carried away inspired him for
the rest of his life. They contained the seeds, which later resulted
in his On the Origin of the Species by Natural Selection and produced
a revolution in human scientific thought that went on to change the thinking
of mankind. I cannot presume to have such vision or greatness but merely
hope that this article does justice to the uniqueness of the Galapagos
Islands and perhaps inspires you into a voyage of discovery.

A three-hour flight carried us some 600 miles west of the coast of Ecuador
into the Pacific Ocean to the Galapagos archipelago, now declared a National
Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in an effort to preserve the islands
just as they were centuries ago. Here we were met by Bitiane, or BT as
she helpfully suggested, the naturalist on board our boat the Alta who
was to bring the Galapagos alive with such passion.

Ensconced on the Alta later that evening, BT gave
us the first of what were to become nightly talks about the Galapagos
and their unique natural
history and ecology. The purpose of the talks was twofold. Firstly to
give us background information about the area and animals we would see,
getting us excited about the next day, as if we weren’t already.
Secondly to deal with the practicalities of what to wear, which varied
depending on whether we would have a wet or dry landing, whether we would
be swimming, snorkelling or hiking. She carefully explained how the thirteen
islands and dozens of smaller islets and rocks of the Galapagos were
the result of volcanic activity, the oldest being San Cristóbal
and Espanol in the east of the archipelago which were three million years
old, and the youngest being Fernandina and Isabela in the west that were
700,000 years old. Thus in geological terms the islands are very young
but more importantly they have never been connected to the South American
continent and hence there are so many endemic species: a quarter of the
species of shore fish, half of the plants and almost all of the reptiles
are found nowhere else.

Having condensed millions of years of evolution
into a matter of minutes, BT went on to explain the next day’s
events, which ironically took much longer to do as she was bombarded
with excited questions. Duly sated,
both with knowledge and food, I retired to my cabin where I was rocked
to sleep by the gentle rolling motion of the ocean (due to the distances
between the various islands and in order to maximise our time on the
different islands it was necessary to sail each night).

I awoke with eagerness and anticipation and my first steps onto the
Island of Genovesa did not disappoint. I had heard and read many times
that due to the absence of predators, the animals and birds lacked any
fear of humans and yet little did I fully appreciate the enormity of
this until I was confronted by a masked boobie blocking my way on the
path. In defiance of the instinct of survival and unperturbed by my greater
size, the boobie obstinately stood his ground. I marvelled at his bravery
and stepped off the trail to find that he was not alone and that I was
surrounded by hundreds of fearless boobies.

I was both thrilled and surprised. Thrilled at
seeing so many birds at such close quarters and, being no ornithologist,
surprised that I
could be so enthusiastic about birds. The Galapagos were winning me over
already. I tried to explain my excitement to BT but she smiled patiently
and assured me that this was only the beginning. She was not wrong as
only later that day I nearly head-butted a red-footed boobie in a tree
- the red-footed boobie is the only web-footed bird capable of perching.
Calmly observing me from its perch, the exquisite face and brilliant
colours at the rim of the boobie’s eyes reminded me of the make-up
of the Chinese Opera.

However the opera of the red-footed boobie paled
in comparison to the drama, albeit light-hearted and comical, of the
courtship ritual of the
blue-footed boobie. Having located each other via the male’s whistle
and the female’s honk they would begin to rock their egg-shell
blue feet awkwardly in the dance of courtship, building up to a crescendo
when they would start strutting, or sky pointing as it is scientifically
referred to, putting their head and tail skywards and raising their wings
in display. The amusing performance would end with much appreciative
clucking and the symbolic presentation of twigs – a boobie love
token. The more cultured amongst you would undoubtedly be more eager
to see the elegant and beautiful courting ritual of the waved albatross.
Every naturalist’s dream, it was undeniably transfixing to watch
as they clashed their beaks together in graceful rhythm, but it did not
touch me in the same way as the clumsiness and unassuming charm of the
boobies. I am unashamedly a boobie man.

The next day we disembarked from the panga – a small zodiac that
ferried us from the Alta to the islands and back – to be confronted
by a group of local heavies loitering menacingly in the early morning
sun. Slouched arrogantly across the rocks, their spiky black scales not
only made them difficult to distinguish from the volcanic rock but gave
them a hard, punk-like quality. Supercilious and disdainful they stared
with contempt at the approach of our camera-touting group.

Although fierce looking, their bite was worse
than their bark: BT explained that the ‘heavies’ were marine
iguanas who were in fact gentle vegetarians. The nearest they got to
threatening behaviour was to squirt
salt from each nostril, a harmless means of rebuffing the over-zealous
amongst our group who dared to get too close.

If the haughty stare of the iguanas was unwelcoming,
the soft, dewy-eyed look of the newly born pup seals was the complete
opposite and had us
reaching for our cameras to capture the heart-rending image on film.
Left in the tide pool for the morning – a kind of seal pup crèche
- whilst their mothers had gone to sea to fish, the pups looked forlorn
and lost, repeatedly crying out for Mum. Yet BT forced us to ignore the
plaintive bleating of the pups ensuring us that there was much more to
see and that we did not want to become emotionally attached to the pups.

As we moved slowly along the shoreline, we passed within feet of a number
of sea lion cows and their young. Basking sleepily in the sun, they barely
lifted an eye at our passing, which was most definitely not the case
when one of our group inadvertently got too close to the territory of
a young bull. Barking angrily, the bull came charging out of the water
at terrifying speed and up the beach to chase the unfortunate transgressor
off his territory. Threat dealt with, the sea lion bull bared his impressive
teeth and roared his disapproval with the arrogance of his terrestrial
namesake.

A few days later we awoke to find ourselves surrounded
by brilliant turquoise water kissing the sandy beaches of San Cristobal’s
shoreline. Today we were going snorkelling and hopefully swimming with
sea lions;
I was as excited as child until my adult sensibilities kicked in and
I remembered how fiercely territorial the bull sea lion had been and
also how cold the sea temperature was. Surprisingly, even though the
islands are situated on the equator and in spite of the strength of the
sun, the water of the Islands is cold due to the Humboldt current which
travels north up from the icy waters of Antarctica. This results in a
number of phenomenon, such as the morning mists that cloak the islands
at certain times of the year, but more importantly in the nutrient rich
waters that support much of the marine life of the Galapagos.

I need not have worried on either account. My ‘shortie’ wet
suit kept me more than warm and the snorkelling was breathtakingly fantastic,
especially swimming with the turtles and sea lions. The turtles were
graceful, quiet and calm as they glided along, their stately progress
in complete contrast to the fast and furious playful antics of the sea
lions. My first contact with the sea lions was when one juvenile came
racing towards me, bared its teeth and then veered away at the very last
minute. My initial reaction was fear but this quickly turned to exhilaration
as I realised that he was only playing and before I knew it I was trying
to imitate these underwater acrobats. But try was all I could do for
the sea lions were in a mesmerising class of their own wheeling, twisting,
turning and somersaulting effortlessly around me.

Back on terra firma we visited Santa Cruz, the
main inhabited island, home to a human population of 10,000 and also
one of the islands’ most
celebrated residents, the giant tortoise. There were once over 200,000
tortoises on the islands but this has now been reduced to about 15,000.
Between the 1500s and 1800s, a great number of tortoises were taken by
sailors for food as they were a good food source living up to a year
in the holds of the ships without food and water - it is said that formerly
single vessels have taken away as many as seven hundred of these creatures.
Darwin himself remarked, “The breastplate roasted, with the flesh
attached to it, is very good; and the young tortoises make excellent
soup.”

The tortoise population suffered badly at the
hands of humans and it would perhaps not have survived but for recent
intervention. Thankfully
the work of the Charles Darwin Research Station, amongst others, has
helped stop the decline in tortoise numbers and given them a more positive
future. Unfortunately not all tortoises have been so lucky as I discovered
when we met ‘Lonesome George’. One of the 11 remaining races
of the Galapagos Giant Tortoise (Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni) comes
from the Island of Pinta, but their numbers were decimated by whalers
and sailors to such an extent that the last recorded sighting of a tortoise
on Pinta was 1906. That was until Galapagos Park wardens came across ‘George’ in
1971. Being the last of his species, ‘Lonesome George’ was
placed in a corral with female tortoises (Geochelone elephantopus becki)
from Wolf Volcano in the hope that he would pass some of his genes into
future generations (the Wolf race were the closest morphologically to
the Pinta race). Sadly ‘George’ has not succeeded in breeding
successfully with these females and thus when ‘George’ dies
his races ends with them.
Sadly the old problem of human depredation and the ensuing threat to
the islands’ biodiversity and eco-systems is rearing its ugly head
again, but this time in the guise of the growth of the tourism industry,
which grew from 10,000 visitors in 1980 to over 60,000 in 2000. The tourism
debate is an emotive one with foreign scientists and conservationists
on one side and populist politics on the other. The answer is not for
us, the tourists, to necessarily stay away but to travel with a small
operator that advocates sustainable practice and seeks to minimise its
impact on the islands. There is an important role for the tourist to
play not least in visiting the islands and becoming an ambassador for
their protection and conservation. And there is such wealth and diversity
to protect:

“There! There!” I cried excitedly as I saw the spray of
a blowhole spouting in the distance. But by the time the others in the
panga were looking in the direction in which I was pointing, there was
of course no longer any sign of the spray – it was pointless, rather
like trying to show someone where you had just seen a shooting star.
The others looked at me with scepticism, wary of the fact that I had
caused a twenty-minute diversion from our early morning sailing schedule
in search of whales that I had allegedly seen. Undeterred by their lack
of faith in my “sighting” I continued to scan the horizon,
reassured by the fact that BT was also keeping a lookout; she knew that
this was a good area in which to see whales and moreover that the conditions
for doing so were perfect.

“Yes, yes. You’re quite right. I think there are two of
them on the horizon about two o’clock,” confirmed BT. With
corroboration from the expert I felt vindicated, but more importantly
we headed off towards the spray.

We soon realised that there was not one but three whales, the largest
of which was some seventeen metres in length, feeding in the area. They
were Sei whales, a type of baleen whale, and it was a truly remarkable
experience seeing these leviathans rise gradually out of the water for
breath before slipping back below the surface to resume their feeding.
Even though they were some ten to twenty metres away their impressive
size dwarfed our three-metre zodiac.

The whales were feeding on krill, a small shrimp-like crustacean, which
in turn brought fish to the surface and thus birds. The sky was littered
with boobies diving ungainly all around us. The water churned with little
thuds and splashes as the boobies hit the water, diving as deep as twenty
feet to ensnare a fish.

Having watched the whales for several minutes, BT felt sure that were
feeding in a circular pattern and manoeuvred the panga into the centre
of this imaginary circle and cut the engine. The effect of silencing
the motor was electric, heightening our senses and anticipation of what
was going on around us. The sea was calm, eerily so, which was more than
could be said for my racing heartbeat.

The whales seemed – and it can only be the most vague of estimates
as I was so absorbed by the whole experience that I really had no sense
of time – to be underwater for an age, certainly much longer than
usual. Had they had their fill and moved off? Where were they? Then suddenly
the water all around us seemed to come to the boil as thousands of bubbles
rose to the surface. I stared in disbelief struggling to come to terms
with what was happening, that directly below us a whale was coming to
the surface. It was thrilling, magical yet at the same time frightening
as hell.

I do not know if the whale was aware of our small
presence or if it was too absorbed in it’s feeding to notice
us. Whether by design or luck, the whale did not, thankfully, come
up directly below us but
swam just underneath rising on the far side of the panga, back arching
slowly, gracefully and above all massively.

Dumbfounded we all stared in amazement, humbled
by the sheer size of the mighty cetacean. “Did anyone get a photo,” someone whispered
hoarsely. BT’s nervous laughter said it all – we had all
been too gripped by the excitement of the moment to even contemplate
trying to capture it on film.

This for me is the very essence of the Galapagos,
namely that while you may come away with some fantastic photographs
it is impossible to
capture the inimitable charm of the islands on film. There is simply
put nothing else like them in the world and it seems fitting to end where
I began with a quote from Darwin: “The natural history of this
archipelago is very remarkable: it seems to be a little world within
itself; the greater number of its inhabitants, both vegetable and animal,
being found nowhere else.”